Increasing the maximum wage

I think one problem that advocates of tax justice in the U.S. have is that most people simply can't wrap their mind around just how much money the super wealthy are actually hoarding in this country. This little factoid about John Paulson, the hedge-fund manager, might help. In 2010 John Paulson made $2.4 million an hour. Yes, you read that right, not $2.4 million per year, month, or week, all of which would seem like a lot, but $2.4 million an hour. In the interest of fairness, we could pretend (on no evidence) that Mr. Paulson takes no vacations, and works through lunch and weekends. In this case his hourly rate would come down to under $2 million, but still well over $1million an hour. And the beauty part? All of this money is considered capital gains and is taxed by the feds at the same marginal rate (15%) of somebody earning $10/hr! Glad to see that "shared sacrifice" thing is really happening! Well, yeah, Ulysses, but we don't want to discourage a JOB CREATOR with punitive taxation, do we? I don't know-- hedge-fund managers' reckless speculations, in the sub-prime securities market, tanked the economy a couple years back. We're still many many millions of jobs in the hole. Mr. Paulson could buy a new Cadillac, and build a boat-house, every day for the rest of his life-- and his trickling down on the rest of us will never begin to make up for the devastation he's caused to our nation.

So next time you complain about paying the plumber, think of Mr. Paulson's hourly rate and maybe you'll feel a bit better!